That was a different time and place. The world wasn't as populated and litigative as it is now. We're on the downward side of this current civilization. Perhaps millenia from now our predecessors will come up with the answers that eluded us.

I suspect the “cure” for cancer will be genetic, it’ll be multi-variant, therefore semi-customized for the individual patient, and will involve either repairing individual genes or using genes from another species. There’s a lot of work going on along these lines, and some has reversed genetically inherited diseases. I don’t think “simple or easy” is a realistic possibility.

As far as the meme about drug company profits goes, even the most common substance has to be carefully administered and monitored, the disease has to be accurately diagnosed, and the patient has to be followed up for relapses. All of those activites generate revenue for the medical profession, so the profit of drug companies is not the sole market force involved. They’ll provide whatever substance is required, in much the same way as they’ve continued to provide Claritin since it went off prescription.

Treatment of cancer has advanced a great deal since my introduction to it via a loved one, and later on with a beloved dog. “Alternative” therapies are being researched and tested now, unlike then. There’s a place for both conventional medical science and herbal treatments, as well as dietary supplements.

I distrust genetic manipulation, maybe it’s a poor bias akin to the closed mindedness I encountered trying to help those I loved in any way possible back then, but I do. Some individuals inherit a propensity to develop certain cancers, true, but most of it is just cells gone wrong and not destroyed by the body’s natural defenses in time.

Live long enough, and you’ll develop cancer. It’s almost an inevitability.

For anyone with an interest in the history of cancer research, I highly recommend Siddhartha Mukherjee’s “The Emperor of all Maladies”. It’s available in Kindle for about ten bucks, and in paperback for that or less. It takes you from early history to the current day, and details how far we’ve come and how far is left to go.

I agree that all angles should be pursued. As far as genetic manipulation goes, genes code for proteins, and proteins control cell function. In the circumstance where run away cellular production is caused by a deficiency in production of the protein that regulates the reproductive cycle due to a malfunctioning gene, replacing that gene with a working one has some real possibilities. They’re early in the process at the moment.

There’s currently a trial for an inherited form of blindness where they’ve made it work, and I recently met a scientist who’s successfully repaired and replaced a defective gene that produces a certain form of heart failure.

Genetic manipulation is tricky ground, though, so your distrust is reasonable, in early work a child was cured of a rare inherited muscular disease, only to die of leukemia created by a previously unknown function of the gene they repaired. When you’re fiddling with the cellular reproductive cycle great care is required.

Of course the pharm companies are not interested, there is no money in it. But if the oncologists know about it, it will be used.

Thank you for injecting some sanity into this thread. There is not a world-wide conspiracy involving every single doctor, nurse, pharmacist and medical researcher on the planet to get filthy rich and kill people. I understand that there are actually about a dozen of them who got into the business to heal people. For reals!

66
posted on 03/20/2012 11:13:50 PM PDT
by TigersEye
(Life is about choices. Your choices. Make good ones.)

Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the general public

And cancer is “treated” not “cured”. When someone says “cured Cancer” they are trying to whip up an emotional reaction rather than giving an accurate analysis of treatment.

Even if I gave 1,000 people with various cancers my miracle drug and they ALL went into remission and none of them had any adverse events - and 10 years later they were all still in remission - I would STILL not claim to have “Cured” their cancer - only to have successfully treated it over a 10 year period.

But quacks selling snake oil to fools do NOT use such language.

68
posted on 03/21/2012 7:36:16 AM PDT
by allmendream
(Tea Party did not send GOP to DC to negotiate the terms of our surrender to socialism)

Not irritated at all because people like you simply do not see the spiritual/rage cause of cancer and most all other diseases. God made his creation perfect, but it is when we do not understand and become very unforgiving that the cells go haywire, with the help of the darkness plotting that along. Cancer is NOT genetic..makes no sense that God would just allow bodies to get out of control for no reason. I don't expect you to understand that but it is true.

76
posted on 03/21/2012 11:28:47 AM PDT
by fabian
(" And a new day will dawn for those who stand long, and the forests will echo with laughter")

So the basis of your incorrect assertions about what causes cancer is on your supposed understanding of what GOD would or would not allow?

Do you realize how delusional that is?

Somatic mutations are a fact - even if you think God would not allow it - it is obvious God does in fact allow somatic mutations. Grey hair in old people is physical evidence that the genes that would produce and place melanin inside the hair have been mutated in those cells producing gray hair.

That somatic mutations of those genes that regulate cell division can (and do) cause cancer is also a fact - irrespective of what you think God would allow or not allow.

Good and God fearing people without any deficit in spirituality can and do get and die of cancer.

Way to blame the victim. I guess they only died of cancer because they lacked sufficient faith in God and the supposedly ironclad knowledge of the mind of God that you possess.

77
posted on 03/21/2012 11:35:03 AM PDT
by allmendream
(Tea Party did not send GOP to DC to negotiate the terms of our surrender to socialism)

Way to blame God...He made us to live happy, not die of cancer. People like you just do not see how unforgivenesses cause disease, not God's own perfect creation. Look at the wild kingdom where the animals that were made by Him do not die of all of the horrible malodies that humans do.

79
posted on 03/21/2012 1:33:00 PM PDT
by fabian
(" And a new day will dawn for those who stand long, and the forests will echo with laughter")

I have no idea who feeds you all of this crap you spout, but you should stop listening to it, since you lack the critical thinking skills to properly analyze it. I won’t even get into this nonsense about cancer, as other FReepers have already jumped on it with glee, as well they should.

I'm all for that. I am also all for trying anything that won't cause more harm than good. Some regulation of the practice of medicine is a good thing but the government has gotten to the point that it wants to and will be making all medical decisions from the practice of it to research. I wouldn't take a vitamin tablet on the advice of a bureaucrat.

I just get tired of hearing people make the claim that cancer cures would be buried because there is more profit in treating cancer than curing it. I consider that kind of thinking to be like Medieval superstitions only crazier.

86
posted on 03/21/2012 4:58:14 PM PDT
by TigersEye
(Life is about choices. Your choices. Make good ones.)

It is not happening it the wild...happens with people owned animals sometimes, yes. we also know that pets tend to take on the persona of their owners. That Tasmanian devil is an exception. There may have been an environmental cause to his? what I wrote is true about animals and presenting an anomaly does not make it untrue.

88
posted on 03/21/2012 7:13:42 PM PDT
by fabian
(" And a new day will dawn for those who stand long, and the forests will echo with laughter")

Now pets are psychic and take on the persona of their owners? Oh so it is MY FAULT my dog got brain cancer!!!

You are really funny.

Delusional. But funny.

Wild animals don't usually get DIAGNOSED with cancer. Because they don't have concerned people to take them into a vet at the first sign of trouble. But they do get and die of cancer - or die because the cancer rendered them unable to fend for themselves.

Anti-technological nutcases also like to point out that people in undeveloped nations don't get (DIAGNOSED) cancer as often. Because when grandpa gets pancreatic cancer in a hut in Guatemala - chances are it never gets diagnosed AS cancer - but he still dies.

No they do not get cancer just like humans do. If you read that article better you will see they mentioned Tasmanian devils with that specific type of contagious facial cancer. Cancer is not contagious for humans...so it very well could have been picked up and spread from a virus or such. Also, all of the other animals mentioned in your link are sea animals whom roam about where there is much pollution possible, thus they can get disease from that. Animals in the wild do not get sick like us from a spiritual deficiency called rage. You do not see hundreds or thousands of lions or antelopes or brown bears for that matter, dying of cancer. It just does not happen. Sorry, you are just incorrect and you do not know how to debate without getting low and calling me stupid. That is OK though, I am not annoyed at you.

90
posted on 03/22/2012 7:44:01 AM PDT
by fabian
(" And a new day will dawn for those who stand long, and the forests will echo with laughter")

yes, there are incidences of cancer in the wild but not anything like in humans who carry around all sorts of little petty resentments. You have no idea how dangerous it is to our health to overact to stress just as you are overeacting to my perception. No one told me these things although I have heard this from other sources. It is well known that stress can cause disease. Just look at the word for heaven sakes! Dis ease not at ease or at peace!

92
posted on 03/22/2012 9:20:15 AM PDT
by fabian
(" And a new day will dawn for those who stand long, and the forests will echo with laughter")

No, EXACTLY like in humans, and primarily caused by the same thing - SOMATIC MUTATIONS.

No one taught you these things? Good to know that it is not a widespread delusion at least.

Stress CAN and DOES increase incidents of disease - but the disease itself is usually a microbial pathogen - or a somatic mutation causing unregulated cellular division (i.e. cancer).

Despite you delusions about what God does or does not do or want - wild animals DO get cancer - and it is not because their soul is not right with God - or because they live under a great deal of stress - but because over the span of their life they had somatic mutations in some cell lines that made those cells cancerous.

So how does pollution cause cancer in your model?

Does environmental pollutants increase stress? Or do they increase somatic mutations?

93
posted on 03/22/2012 9:26:40 AM PDT
by allmendream
(Tea Party did not send GOP to DC to negotiate the terms of our surrender to socialism)

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